REVIEW: Gabriele Saro — Can’t Fight the Feeling (SINGLE)
A vacuum-like effect over a club-centered groove is all that we need to get lost in the opening bars of the new single “Can’t Fight the Feeling” from Gabriele Saro, but as we’re soon to learn over the course of the next three and a half minutes is that for a player like Saro, effects are only a framing of the true experimentation he can put forth in a pop single. “Can’t Fight the Feeling” has an enormous hook that almost ends up getting buried by its equally monstrous rhythm, but thanks to the definitive separation created through the mix, we never lose sight of what this artist was trying to construct. He’s got incredible aesthetics in play here, but he isn’t botching the indulgence with a lack of focus.
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“I Don’t Mind” is the second single Saro is releasing this spring, and although it’s much more rock-oriented and guitar-powered than the other track, it’s debatably just as danceable and as pushy in every respect. There’s a brashness to this singer’s delivery that he uses quite liberally, but he isn’t coming off as being more aggressive than he should be for the surroundings. If anything, this is a performance produced through self-control and a creative whim that would normally be pushed right out the front door in the American underground. As I see it, this artist is giving us a good example of what indie pop/rock can and would sound like with a few more acerbic minds in the genre’s most elite class.
Both of these singles are very conceptual, but I wouldn’t say that they’re progressive per se. The biggest element of surrealism here is the instrumental componentry, with “I Don’t Mind” presenting itself with more contrast than “Can’t Fight the Feeling” does. Neither are over the top, but the theatrics of the latter have made me curious to know just how far Saro could go with a campier aesthetic based solely in the club scene. He’s got the right stuff to turn out some sexy beats in this single, and if channeled in a purely electronic direction, I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be interested in hearing what the end result would sound like. There are plenty of places he can still go with this sound, and anyone who hears these songs is probably going to think the same.
If this is just a preview of what Gabriele Saro is going to be delivering from inside of the recording studio throughout the better part of 2022, I’m going to plan on covering whatever he comes up with next. “Can’t Fight the Feeling” and “I Don’t Mind” have some brooding elements that make me want to get to know Saro the songwriter and musician even more than I feel like I already do with the arrival of these two singles, and as long as he doesn’t rush into anything or make any dramatic changes to his profile, I believe he’s going to stay on the up and up from here on out.
Colin Jordan
